New Canaan Library presents virtual talk on schizophrenia

Staff

Updated
8:19 pm EDT, Tuesday, May 12, 2020

The New Canaan Library presented a virtual talk by Robert Kolker, an award winning journalist, and the author of the 2013 New York Times bestseller, “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” on Tuesday, May 12.

The New Canaan Library presented a virtual talk by Robert Kolker, an award winning journalist, and the author of the 2013 New York Times bestseller, “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” on Tuesday,

The New Canaan Library presented a virtual talk by Robert Kolker, an award winning journalist, and the author of the 2013 New York Times bestseller, “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” on Tuesday, May 12.

The New Canaan Library presented a virtual talk by Robert Kolker, an award winning journalist, and the author of the 2013 New York Times bestseller, “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” on Tuesday,

The New Canaan Library presented a virtual talk by Robert Kolker, award-winning journalist and the author of the 2013 New York Times bestseller, “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” on Tuesday, May 12. The talk began at 7 p.m. Kolker spoke about his latest book release titled, “Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of An American Family.” As part of the presentation, Kolker was joined by Silver Hill Hospital’s Chief Clinical Officer Michael Groat, Ph.D., for a discussion of the many questions surrounding schizophrenia.

“A feat of empathy and narrative journalism,” declared Jennifer Szalai of The New York Times. “Hidden Valley Road” offers insight into the mysterious and often misunderstood disease of schizophrenia and the devastating effects on not only the patient, but the entire family. “Hidden Valley Road” tells the story of Mimi and Doug Galvin, who were raising their 12 children in post-WWII Colorado, striving for the American Dream. By the 1970s that dream was shattered, with the revelation that six of the 10 Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic.

The events that took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road were so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, amid disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. Unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.